One Latched Window
by annaisadinosaur
Summary: He had sometimes wondered if his brother hated him, and he found himself wondering it then as the blackness seeped like poison into his skin .. Fitting, really, that it would be black and green against the red .


Regulus's eyelids were heavier than ever at two o'clock that afternoon. His mind was swirling with dates and strange facts from his required Black family reading that afternoon, and he could not escape it for the life of him. Well, he _could_ have, if he'd gone along with Sirius just now, but he hadn't, and that was the end of that.

He watched from the window a little wistfully as Sirius played with the muggle children from down the street. Sirius knew all their names, had even recited them to Regulus, but now Regulus couldn't recall a single one. Sirius had asked if he wanted to come along an hour or so before, but he hadn't answered, just stared long enough until the answer was obvious.

It wasn't that he _didn't_ want to come along, and Regulus wished he could have said that. It was that he was afraid of his parents' rage when they found out they'd gone out without permission, and they would never be given permission to go outside and associate with _muggles_.

So he watched through the window, instead of studying or playing the piano or doing anything his Mum would have wanted him to do at all. He might get scolded for idleness later, but it would be nothing next to Sirius's punishment.

"Oh, they won't catch me," Sirius had said to him with his body half out the window already. "That's the fun of it; they never even know!"

And Regulus supposed he was right. He did all sorts of rebellious, boyish things that his parents never found out about. There was quite a bit they _did_, but even more they didn't.

He was thinking this as the sky grew dark. And then it began to grow darker, and darker still...

A crack of thunder jolted him awake, and he realized he'd drifted off some time ago. When had it started raining? It was pounding against the window like rocks then, and he scurried from his seat by the window. His head was aching and he rubbed irritably, looking for Sirius out the window, only to find he wasn't there. Had he gone to someone else's house? Or had he already come home before it'd started raining?

The loud raps against the window grew even louder, like a rhythm with a crescendo. Regulus peered closer to the window to make sure it wasn't hailing, and through the darkness of the storm he discovered a face only inches from his. He started loudly and jumped back before realizing it was Sirius, whose muted laughter almost made Regulus laugh in spite of himself.

He went and unlatched the window, and his brother stumbled in, water puddling all on the carpet and hair dripping like it was the rain itself. He shook himself off like a dog and splattered water everywhere; Regulus shielded his face and cried out, swatting away his brother, who just kept laughing and laughing.

"Why were you out in the rain?" demanded Regulus, incredulous. He wished he could summon things like his parents often did; right now he was in desperate need of a towel, for Sirius _and_ for himself.

"I tried coming back in, but _Sleeping Beauty_ wouldn't open the window."

Regulus didn't understand the reference—Sirius hardly understood it himself—but it sounded rather too feminine for him, and he scowled.

"Come on," he said, and tugged at his brother's elbow, "let's go dry you off before Mum and Dad find you like this. Look at the carpet. They'll be furious."

Sirius shrieked, throwing his hands over his head in a poor imitation of their mother. "_Do you know what you've just done? This carpet is the Most Noble and Ancient and Moth-Infested Carpet of the House of Black!_"

Regulus was trying to stifle his smile; "And you've been outside."

"_Mudbloods!_" cried Sirius, looking to the heavens. "Heir to the Black throne—ancient and molding and paint peeling and _noble_—out speaking with mudbloods! Stain of the earth, he is, oh, how he harms my heart so, oh, how he aims to make us the subject of ridicule of every one of the other snooty, posh families, _oh, however will we make it look as if we're the ones with the stick the farthest up our arses?_—"

Regulus and Sirius were laughing together now, so loudly they hadn't heard their father walk in, who had been concerned at the sudden level of volume coming from Regulus's bedroom. He stood at the door and their laughter had only just quieted when they realized.

Regulus's eyes went wide and his face went red. He was cowering into the wall all throughout his father's screaming, and when he yanked Sirius away by the wrist, Regulus mouthed to his disappearing figure, _I'm sorry_.

* * *

It had been years now since that day as Regulus remembered it, in some warped form as time had abused it in his mind. He couldn't remember the things Sirius had said, or what it had been that made him laugh so hard, or even why he had, but he realized now that that was probably the only time in his life he'd ever laughed till his ribs ached.

He missed Sirius. He missed his recklessness and his irrationality and his loud laughter and even his arguing. But one day he'd gone out the window and didn't come back inside, even when it'd started raining.

Regulus was looking out the window again, but he was at Hogwarts now, and he wasn't waiting for Sirius anymore. He could see him quite plainly from where he was sitting, his black and red robes stark and visible against the green grass, where he was lounging with his hands behind his head, gazing at a blue sky. He was with his friends, and Sirius had told him their names sometime long ago, but the only thing that came to him now were their surnames, Potter, Lupin, Pettigrew.

He grew sick when he saw them, like the knots in his stomach were being pulled by both ends, but it wasn't because he disliked them. He didn't necessarily _like_ them either; he just supposed he was a little jealous of them, that was all. They were the boys that Sirius had told, "Come on, come outside for a bit," and had gone, while Regulus stayed behind. Always. Every single time.

But now he was at Hogwarts, and he was in the library studying Ancient Runes, and Sirius had run away from home months ago. Things were different, and he had to remember that.

"Excuse me," someone said, and Regulus started, as he was normally a little too easy to frighten. She giggled something of a laugh and pushed her hair behind her ear. "Sorry, I should have—it's just so quiet—I have a homework assignment, and I…"

She was looking at the book in his hands, he realized, and without even thinking, he held it out for her.

"Oh, no, you don't have to—"

"Did you want to borrow it?" he asked. "I'm not using it." He was, actually, but who was asking?

"You're not? Well, I suppose. I just noticed you had it, and there aren't any more copies on the shelf, so..."

"Sure, yeah," said Regulus. "Perfectly okay." Her hand lingered on the book while she took it from him, and he felt the need to say something more. He recognized her in her blue robes. She was _that_ sort of girl, the one that attracted the eyes of boys from every House, even if they had too much pride to admit it. "McKinnon, right?" he asked. "Marlene?"

"Marlene," she said, smiling with fondness. She had dark eyes, the kind you could see yourselves in like reflectors, they were so open. "You're Sirius Black's brother, aren't you?"

He nodded, but his smile dimmed. "Regulus," he elaborated. It was the first time he ever found himself wondering if that's who he was—Sirius's brother—and the first time he was ever bothered by it.

* * *

It was dark outside when it began, and, perhaps ironically, it was raining. Regulus found himself thinking back to when he was a boy, more than ten years ago, sitting by the window and watching the raindrops hit the leaves on his mother's rose bush, wondering when Sirius was coming back inside.

The thunder rumbled inside his chest. Sirius wouldn't be coming home tonight, even if this wasn't really home at all. Regulus hoped, actually, honestly, that Sirius never came anywhere near here. But knowing Sirius, there would come a time when they stood again on opposite sides of the window, faces only inches apart and separated by nothing but a thin sheet of glass.

Only this time when it happened, Regulus would be walking away.

He was someplace else in his mind when the room lit with green, and later he would not remember how it happened or when it had ended. He thought instead the whole time of Sirius's face and how different it had been the last time he had seen him, before Sirius had graduated and never sent word home again. He sometimes wondered if his brother hated him, and he found himself wondering it then as the blackness seeped like poison into his pores. His hand stung from where the air hit his open wound, but Regulus no longer cared about things like blood. Fitting, really, that it would be black and green against the red.

But when he opened his eyes to look down at the mark shining up from his skin, the colors mixing together in the most contradictory of ways, Regulus found, despite all his best defenses, that he was still afraid.


End file.
